A project from the University of Navarra has received 120,000 euros from the Ramón Areces Foundation for research into bone marrow cancer, a disease for which there is currently no cure. The project will be developed over the next three years by Francisco Planes, Deputy Director of department of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences of the School of Engineering and researcher principal of project, explains that the study C consists of a personalized medicine program for multiple myeloma, a subject of bone marrow cancer.

"Multiple myeloma is a very heterogeneous cancer and, therefore, the development of personalized medicine programs is essential. The goal of this research is to exploit the metabolic alterations of myeloma patients through mathematical algorithms that use genomic and transcriptomic data," says Planes.

"These algorithms have been previously published and validated in Nature Communications and Nature Protocols, and we have the largest and most comprehensive cohort of multiple myeloma patients (COMMPASS) available in the literature," continues researcher.

Likewise, and as the expert explains, in the framework of this project "a set of therapeutic targets and response markers are expected to be identified and in-vitro and in-vivo validation will be carried out". 

42 projects funded

A total of 42 scientific projects will be financed by the Ramón Areces Foundation with 5.2 million euros in the 19th edition of the grants for research in Life Sciences and the subject, having presented a total of 618 initiatives from centers and universities in Spain.

The 42 projects, on which 269 researchers will work, will be carried out over the next three years in centres, universities and hospitals in the Community of Madrid, the Valencian Community, Catalonia, Castile and Leon, Andalusia and the Basque Country.

At the ceremony of submission held in Madrid, the president of the Ramón Areces Foundation, Florencio Lasaga; the administrative assistant of State for Universities, Research, development and Innovation, Ángeles Heras Caballero, and Federico Mayor Zaragoza, president of the Ramón Areces Foundation's Scientific committee , took part.